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[Yuri is seated in the kitchen of Odin House. He's made himself some tea. This particular kind of tea is not ideal, and the same can be said of the honey, which is of rather low quality, but it will have to do for now. He takes a thoughtful sip, then returns the teacup to its saucer
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[Here have an utterly cold smile.]
No one needs halfhearted platitudes of concern or action. Least of all children that need to learn to stand on their own if they don't want to die. Otherwise you'll just make them weak while you play out your savior complex.
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Even if I were to "do nothing", as you so sensibly suggest, I cannot reasonably stop feeling. Merely living serves their stated purpose, apparently. Since some participation cannot be avoided, I will choose how that energy is spent. I will spend it as sparingly I can.
Given the choice to uphold justice or not, I will always choose the former.
I'm no one's savior. And as much as I appreciate your dramatic appeal to apathy, the desire to protect children from injury or death is a natural instinct and rather basic.
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History is wrought with atrocities done in the name of justice. War, persecution, genocide... justice is little more than a pretty word used by delusional men to placate their own senses. Much like the desire to 'protect'.
If you want to 'protect' teach the weak to defend and survive.
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What a simplistic view. What you describe is not true justice; it is deceit. If injustice is said to be justice by tyrants and monsters, it is not the principle itself that is to blame, but the hypocrisy of the evil.
If one is fooled by such false trappings, perhaps one should learn to think for oneself rather than accept what others say at face value.
The weak can be taught to survive without allowing them to "stand on their own" as you suggest.
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[He smiles and laughs as he shakes his head, slightly amused by the impassioned words. His own tone is calm, low and melodious as he props his chin on the back of his hand.]
What I describe is nothing more than history, for my world. What I said was I hate the word and all the twisted things done in the name of. I don't recall ever implying that I bought into that delusion. Though do tell... how do you teach someone to survive without teaching them how to stand on their own two feet?
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My world has seen similar events. It is a cruel world. You may hate the word justice all you like, but that misses my point, and I won't indulge your apparent desire to argue semantics.
What I suggested was a concern for the welfare of children, and I was accused of "making them weak". One can look after children while simultaneously teaching them to survive on their own. There's no need to be callous or neglect them.
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[He's not going to belabor the rest - for him, the justice that this man speaks of... that is the true perversion of the word. It enables false hope for protection that will not come. It weakens one's sense of survival, dulls their blade...
Sets them up for an earlier demise.
In a world where he's the sole survivor of an entire race of people, where he's been hunted like human prey, like an animal, where life is hard and cruel, where no one is willing to reach out a hand, no matter how small...
That kind of justice this man speaks of, that is the lie.
As to the rest, well, they'll probably never see eye to eye there either. He blinks and watches this man, his gaze still steady, his eyes a silvery reflection of emptiness as he smiles mirthlessly.]The problem with that, is you're teaching them to be dependent, whether you intend to or not. You're teaching them that someone will be there to hold their hand and shield their eyes and that's not something you can guarantee ( ... )
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[He can't believe someone is speaking to him in favor of what amounts to abusive neglect. No, he can believe it; in his years as a prosecutor, then a judge, there are few things he hasn't seen. That doesn't mean he likes it.
He knows very well what happens when the hands that lift one up should disappear--or worse, turn against one. He sees the mark of that hand every day. That makes him all the more determined that the same should not happen to others.
As for his justice, he'll always believe in it. He's seen it for himself, bright and unforgiving. He knows what it can do. It cleanses all who find themselves faced with it, freeing them from darkness with its pitiless blue fire.]People who behave as you suggest are those who should find themselves faced with Justice ( ... )
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I haven't the answers you seek, old man. I don't have the benefit of an elite education that would enable me to bandy about the definitions that layer the shades between cruelty and necessity that you demand.
Mayhap you're right and these saplings will grow sure and strong... then again, maybe you're not. Maybe all they really need is the tools to survive, unfettered by useless emotion or sentimentality.
[He shrugs and tilts his head back, silvery gray eyes sure as he smiles.]
One thing is for sure, good sir, and that is your world is nothing like life outside the wall. Inside, maybe, but then.. that too, is a whole 'nother world.
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You certainly won't convince me of the merits of abandoning children. If that is what happens in your world, it is unjust, and I would stand against that as well. [As for those who had hunted Nezumi, Yuri would have shown them his brand of justice too, as much as he doesn't like Nezumi.]
I'm not advocating sentimentality, but basic humanitarianism.
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You would have probably have been some kind of lawyer in the world that was.
As it is now... it's not a question of understanding your argument as it is having a polar opposite understanding of 'humanity' and--
[He actually hesitates, just a breath, a flicker of the eyes, because the desire to stand against those wrongs and bring down that wall... in all his sixteen years he's only ever seen it expressed with such a firm resolve in a single person. And Shion wasn't here.]
--that idealism is what'll get you killed all the faster rather than help you survive, old man.
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The word humanitarianism refers to the belief that humanity's duty is to work for the welfare of all humankind. Seeing as how not all sentient creatures here are human, I would extend the definition to include all other such beings. So humanitarian means "concern for others' welfare and the community as a whole". It's not the same as humanity, as many humans are not humanitarian. Indeed, I would say the majority of them are not.
[If an idealist can be said to be cynical, Yuri would be a cynical idealist. He does not fear death. Sinners are cowards, but the righteous need not fear. He has meted out justice, burned sinners clean, and always he has believed that he freed them from darkness and sent them toward rebirth. So why would he fear death? He lives for justice, and he would die for it. He would only be sorry that his purpose as a vessel for that justice would end there. His power may have been ( ... )
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His gray eyes are flat and calm as ever as he shakes his head a bit.]
So you lack a self-preservation instinct.
It's clear we're going to get no where in this conversation - my world is not yours and yours is not mine. Using such worthless words like that would either earn you a blank look... or a beating. A shot to the brainpan if you were lucky.
[He sighs at that and reaches for the jewel to end the conversation.]
The moment you let others into your heart, you lose. Because it's when you have something to protect that you become weak, vulnerable. So have fun with that, since I doubt they'll appreciate it once you're dead.
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You're the one who is apparently blinded by the circumstances of your own world. I am trying to discover how this world works, what it will become, and adapt my actions to fit.
Of course I have a self-preservation instinct. I'm well-trained in self defense. What I mean is that I don't allow fear to guide me. [He isn't a coward, and in his own world, there are few people as strong and as pitiless as he is. It is sinners who are cowards. What do the righteous have to fear?
He laughs, softly. How ironic. There is no one in his heart, and his justice is cold and merciless. What he protects is not a tangible thing but an ideal, an ideal that will not be harmed by his death, though he will fight to the last to survive to protect and uphold it. But he doesn't expect this young man to understand that.] You make so many assumptions, but you're young. I hope that won't always be the case. [He means that earnestly. This young man has promise, in some ways, as misguided as he is. But Yuri can ( ... )
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[Why yes, he's deliberately playing obtuse now. Yuri has now said just enough to really piss Nezumi off, because he's not blind - he's not blind at all. He's just all too intimately aware of the sheer depth of depravity that mankind will all too willingly sink themselves to.
It has nothing to do with this world or his or this man's.
It has everything to do with the disease called the human condition. How want and desire, power and ambition, can twist the soul without even a token protest. It's not fear that guides Nezumi. No. It's merely a stark reality that has always been there under the veneer of a pristine wall.
To believe anything else is like asking him to accept one of the many tomes of fiction he's read as a true reality.
Nothing more than a flight of fancy, which is why he smiles on so coolly now.]
Don't worry about me, Mister Humanitarian, worse shadows than this place haven't managed to cut me down yet. I'll live to be older than you, no doubt.
[And then he kills the feed. He ( ... )
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